Communities and Competitions

Communities and Competitions

Chapter:

(p.89)
5 Communities and Competitions

Source:

God of Comics

Author(s):

Natsu Onoda Power

Publisher:

University Press of Mississippi

DOI:10.14325/mississippi/9781604732207.003.0005

By the early 1950s, Osamu Tezuka had become the most popular cartoonist, and one of the highest-earning artists, in Japan. Because of his innovations and popularity, Tezuka inspired a large number of young people throughout the country to pursue a career in cartoons. His apartment in Tokyo became a commune of emerging cartoonists such as Terada Hiroo, Fujiko Fujio, and Ishinomori Shōtarō. During his early years in Tokyo, Tezuka reworked some of his early akahon volumes, including 38 do senjō no kaibutsu (The Monster on the 38th Parallel, 1953). Although Tezuka remained one of the most successful cartoonists in Japan, he struggled to keep up with competition in the comics industry as new genres emerged, such as kaiki manga (horror) and harenchi manga (comic-erotica), along with weekly magazines. Tezuka created his own versions of these newer genres by embellishing them with his own jokes, stars, and references.

University Press of Mississippi requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.